No matter what what industry you are in, it’s important to provide high-value information on your site or blog that better educates, informs, or improves engagement with your visitors. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, it’s a good idea to include information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.

To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to sort through, research, and organize a lot of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is kept up-to-date. As you can imagine, this not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your readers up-to-date with great information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The simplest way to provide your readers with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What Does It Mean?

• RSS, which, according to some is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save users time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news, audio playlists, etc., to which other users can choose to subscribe.
• RSS feeds can be read using a software program called a feed reader, or aggregator. Aggregators are used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and updates made to this content) online.
• Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, feedreaders, and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from multiple sites.

This article shows you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Most digital agencies rely heavily on content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies all around the world.

Content syndication allows most news reporting agencies and many leading online publications to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics as well as newsworthy content from around the globe without actually having to employ and send more news reporting departments to every location around the world …

(Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies around the planet.)

Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content with other sites. online media publications syndicate their content using feeds …

(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content)

Most sites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate additional web traffic.

Many content publishing agencies will contain an RSS feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “huffington post rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most news reporting agencies and major online media publications provide links to an RSS feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )

Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections …

(RSS Feeds. Image Source: NY Times)

These feeds allow you to access information from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, travel news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain further feed subcategories …

(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)

Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Syndicating Content

Adding content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s business and helps you by freeing you up from having to create that content …

(Using Feeds Has Many Benefits!)

While adding an RSS feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to syndicate YOUR content.

When other websites syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(Try to get visitors to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)

Overview Of The WordPress RSS Feed

By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.

Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on your navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(Meta widget)

2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.

In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On some sites and again, depending on your WordPress site’s theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Stay In Touch, Links, or Share floating, fixed, or slide-out toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Links, or Follow Us slide-out, fixed, or floating toolbar)

4) You can also view your WordPress feed by simply typing your site’s URL into a browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
• http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS feed page …

(RSS feed entries viewed using a Firefox web browser)

Note that your feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …

(RSS feed entries seen on a Chrome web browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

You can specify how many items you would like to display in your Feeds page in the Reading Settings section. Type the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)

Your feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in the Reading Settings section …

(Your feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in your Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

The other setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display your posts as full text, or just as a summary …

(WP Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …

(Post excerpts affect how your feed content will appear)

If you need help Post excerpts, go here:

• WordPress Post Excerpts A Guide For WordPress Beginners

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.

Let’s see how this works.

First, find a website or blog and look for a ‘subscribe’ link using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look for an RSS feed link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …

(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)

Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your subscribers.

How To Add Feeds To WordPress

In the example below, we are going to add content from other website’s RSS feeds to yours.

Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu …

(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)

First, go to a website or blog that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy its feed URL …

(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)

Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(WordPress RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Blog

Load your website in your browser. The content should now appear in the sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …

(RSS Feed Added To Sidebar Menu)

Add Your WordPress RSS Feed To Search Consoles

You can add your WordPress RSS feed to Google and Bing’s search consoles. This will help them index your content faster.

(WordPress RSS feed added to Google Search Console)

Adding your site’s RSS feed to search consoles is simple, fast, easy, and requires no technical skills. For a step-by-step tutorial, go here:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add Feed Content To Your WordPress Posts

Can you add content from RSS feeds to a post instead of your sidebar? Yes, you can!

You can easily do this using plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(RSS plugins)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.

The plugins listed below can be used to feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds according to categories and campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin)

The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to syndicate, import, curate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)

The POWr RSS Feed plugin automatically combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.

The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.

The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.

This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a versatile syndication plugin for WordPress content.

As stated in the FeedWordPress site …

FeedWordPress is an open-source Atom/RSS aggregator for the WordPress blog publishing platform. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table, where they can be displayed by your WordPress templates like any other post — but with additional meta-data, so that your templates can properly attribute the post to the source it came from.

You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine posts from different sources), or display all of your online activity into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give it a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages)

You can use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users.

To inspect your comments feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget area on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …

(WordPress Comments Feed)

Comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed entries as seen using a Firefox browser)

Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …

(Comments feed items viewed with a Google Chrome web browser)

Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …

(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader.com)

Note: If the Meta section is not displaying on your theme, you can view the Comments RSS section of your site by opening up a browser and typing in the following URL:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/comments/feed
• http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/comments/feed (if your website is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Single Item RSS Feeds

Being able to access an RSS feed for a single post item can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS directories, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.

The formula for accessing an RSS feed for a specific post item is shown below:

(Individual Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post RSS Feed)

Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not the post content itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from a particular post category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

If your website or blog publishes content under different categories, you can provide a separate RSS feed for each category.

All you have to do is use the format below:

(Format for WordPress post categories RSS feed)

Copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Copy your category link address …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(WP post categories feed format)

The RSS feed will now only display content posted in that particular category …

(Category-specific feed page)

The WordPress Codex also provides different ways to create feeds not just for post categories, but also feeds for tags, authors, search, etc.

For this example, let’s create a feed for a specific post category using the format shown below:

(Post Category feed format. Source: WordPress Codex)

Here is the feed format WordPress recommends using. In this example, the post category ID is ’42’. We’ll need to replace the post category ID and the domain name …

(WordPress post category feed format)

To find the post category ID, go to Posts > Categories …

(Posts > Categories menu)

Locate the post category you want and hover your mouse over the title to reveal its unique ID …

(Post Category ID)

In our example, the post category ID is ’29’ and the post category feed format we need to use for this specific category with our domain name looks like this …

(Post category feed format with domain name and ID)

Copy and paste the feed into your browser and hit enter …

(Paste the feed into your browser)

This will display the feed for that specific category …

(RSS feed of a specific post category)

Note that in this example, WordPress automatically converted the feed format we pasted into the browser into the category feed we had used in the previous section of this tutorial …

(Post category feed format)

Here is the feed format again …

(Post category feed)

In this case, the simplest way to create additional feeds for specific categories is to simply change the post category slug …

(Change the post category slug to create a new category specific feed)

Paste the edited feed into your web browser and hit enter to display the content for that specific category’s feed …

(Post category feed content)

Now that you have a method for creating feeds for specific post categories (or tags, authors, etc.), you can even create a directory or list of individual feeds for visitors.

Tip #4 – Publish Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds On Your Site

You can set up a feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger online publishers do …

(Provide A Feeds List)

All you need to do is link an image to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a new page …

(RSS image. Image: public-domain-photos.com)

If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress content, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Creating And Adding Tables In WordPress Pages And Posts

RSS Feeds – Additional Notes

Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.

WordPress allows you to configure different feed types that do not require editing code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of feed types you can display on your site and how to structure these feeds …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)

Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – contains your latest entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that displays the latest comments posted on your blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed that displays a post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Includes the latest comments made on an individual post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/06/23/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/02/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – RSS feed that includes latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: RSS feed displaying the latest post entries for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Contains latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

It’s a good idea to let your visitors know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place your subscribe button image in a visible location …

(Encourage your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)

Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if the information that you provide on your site is useful, educational, or highly engaging. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Add someone else’s content and get visitors to subscribe to your content online with RSS!)

If you need help coming up with content ideas subscribe to our FREE content creation course using the form below:

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed 🙂

Additional RSS Resources:

• RSS Images – Visit online resource sites like iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here to learn more about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
• WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation and reference. Go here for additional information about using feeds in WordPress.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business web site please see our related posts section.

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